tiresome but nonetheless always sure of itself

Republicans Win, Government Defeated

The great political discourse between big government liberals and small government conservatives is over. On Friday, the federal government intitated by the adoption of the U.S. Constitution and maintained through two-and-a-half centuries of wars, depressions and revolutions will grind to a halt. By preventing a legal framework for the funding of national programs and institutions from taking shape, the Republican Party will claim ultimate victory over the American public’s greatest enemy: itself.

“This is what we have worked for since the days of Reagan,” Speaker John Boehner remarked in a press conference where he and House Majority Whip Eric Cantor accepted the President’s concession of the ages-old struggle between civil society and Old West, frontier-style anarchy. “We’ve known for a long time that government was the problem, and now that problem is gone. This is a sweet day for liberty.”

Americans today can hardly imagine their lives without the sinister influence of government. Everywhere one looks, signs of its penetrating reach are evident, from traffic lights, to police officers, food labels, public schools, libraries, and parks. For a century, the cost of these ‘services’ was coerced from individuals through a system of slavery called ‘taxes’ that required every person, regardless of their job-creating powers, to hand over a portion of their rightful property for the benefit of the public-at-large. Now, that long night is over.

Prominent commentator and editor Bill Kristol had even loftier assertions on the importance of the day. “Our children, and our children’s children, will live in a day where the burdens of public spending will not exist. From this day forward, we will live in a world free of infrastructure upgrades, immigration enforcement, corny ‘Presidential Awards’ for successful grade school students and the FAA. America will return to the system of government that God meant for this great land: none of the above.”

Democrats in Washington and elsewhere have conceded defeat and are surrendering to angry mobs all over the country. Many are calling for a truth-and-reconciliation commission to help heal the divided nation, but their constant propagation of the ideas and instruments of government is unlikely to be forgiven. “How are we supposed to hold such hearings without an established legal order and funding to support the proceedings?” ex-chairman of the House Judiciary Committee James Sensenbrenner said to CNN Tuesday, “These requests are nothing but a ploy to reinstate a system of checks and balances that protects the interests of the people, and we will not stand for it.”

Connecticut senator and liberal-defector Joe Lieberman applauded the imminent failure of our nation’s public sector on Meet the Press Sunday, “This has been a long time coming. Anyone who is surprised should read the writing on the wall: we are not here to advance the common good or the public interest – America is a nation of individuals, and now, thank God, it isn’t a nation at all.”